Elektra Lopez Reveals She Was Originally Going To Be Called Up With Legado Del Fantasma

Elektra Lopez did not join Legado Del Fantasma on the main roster when they got called up, but she says that was originally the plan. The trio of Santos Escobar, Joaquin Wilde and Raul Mendoza were called up to the WWE main roster in 2022 but Lopez, who was their manager, stayed behind in NXT and Zelina Vega became the group’s new manager. Lopez (now using her real name Karissa Rivera following her WWE release) appeared on the Fan’s View podcast and said that she was initially supposed to go with the others but found out the day before the debut that she was not going with. You can see highlights below (h/t to Fightful):

On not being called up: “Let’s go back to how it all began. People don’t realize what actually happened. We were all told we were called up together. We had our last vignette where we all drive away from NXT, together. I’m not talking bad about the company or anything, I’m just stating what happened. Two months go by and we’re waiting for them to tell us when we’re going to debut. Finally, we all get a call on Wednesday. ‘You guys are debuting this Friday on SmackDown. This is your flight and travel.’ We got all of that, including me. Thursday comes, I’ve finished up packing, I’m in the gym working out, thinking, ‘This is what you’ve worked your entire life and it’s finally happening.’ I get back home, I had checked in and downloaded my boarding pass. I’m about to leave to go the airport and I get a missed call from someone. ‘The boys are going up and you’re not going with them.’ ‘Are you sure? I have all my travel and hotel. Are you sure?’ ‘Yeah, I just got word this morning.’ This person was actually upset, too. You could hear it in his voice. ‘Unfortunately, they put it on me to give you the call to tell you.’

“It’s something where it’s everything you worked for and you’ve finally accomplished it….I even told all my family. That day I was supposed to fly out, I started telling my close family and friends. When I got that call, everything you think you have in the palm of your hand, it was just gone. I hung up the phone and literally stood there for ten minutes in disbelief. As any human, I broke down. You had me thinking for almost three months that this was happening. If you knew this wasn’t going to happen, you probably knew ahead of time. Why give me my flight information, my hotel, everything, and then tell me, ‘Actually, you’re not.’ That’s what it was.”.

On if she was told or suspects why she didn’t join the group: “I don’t know. Maybe they wanted somebody….I have a good relationship with Zelina. It’s a business. I honestly don’t know. I feel like they knew that’s what was going to happen, and it was a mistake. Not trying to talk bad about the company, but for a billionaire company, how was there a communication mistake like that? You should know ahead of time, especially when I’ve been taken out of classes at NXT for two months because I was going up. I took it as, ‘Alright. This happened. All I’m going to do is train harder, work harder, and prove to them why I deserve to be up there,’ and that’s what I did.

“What if I didn’t answer the call? That flight, the worst part is, they didn’t even cancel the whole thing out. My return flight home, I got a notification, ‘You’re ready to check in for your flight.’ I was like, ‘Are you kidding me? They didn’t even cancel the flight so I get a notification? Really?’ Just twist the knife and really dig it in.”